When I decided to write about spiritual disciplines this month, I knew I wanted to approach them differently. We know we’re supposed to pray, read our Bibles, meditate, and rest. But how do we make these practices something we want to do instead of something we feel obligated to do?

I hadn’t quite figured out how I wanted to approach Bible study until I attended the Brave Space Conference on Wednesday.

One of the presenters, CHRIS. Christopher Hearn, led a session where we listened to a song and identified lyrics that spoke to us about leadership. He gave us the written lyrics, played the song, and then repeated the words a cappella. It was a really cool exercise, but what struck me most was that I had done something similar just a couple of months earlier.

In August, I attended a gospel concert featuring Naomi Raine, Chandler Moore, and Tony Evans. It was an amazing experience, but I was also going through a difficult time. My cousin had passed away just two days earlier. I already had the tickets, so I decided to go.

As I listened to the music, certain lyrics kept speaking to me. Instead of just enjoying them in the moment, I started writing them down.

Now, I’ve been to plenty of concerts. I’ve seen Beyoncé more times than I can count, and I’ve attended gospel concerts before. But I’d never sat at a concert writing down lyrics.

At first, I felt a little strange doing it.

But I didn’t want to forget what I was hearing. I wanted to go back, sit with those words, and find the Scriptures that supported them. I wanted to know whether what I was singing and hearing aligned with what God had actually said.

And that’s when I realized something.

This could be Bible study.

What if, instead of approaching Bible study the same way every day, we found creative ways to engage with God’s Word?

What if you turned on your favorite gospel song, listened closely to the lyrics, and wrote down the words that stood out to you? Then you could open your Bible and search for Scriptures that support, explain, or even challenge what you heard.

You might discover a promise you’ve overlooked, a passage you want to understand better, or a reminder of God’s character that you desperately needed.

And just because a lyric sounds good doesn’t automatically mean it’s biblical. That’s part of the beauty of studying. We get to examine what we’re hearing against what Scripture actually teaches.

Bible study doesn’t always have to look like sitting in a quiet room with your Bible, a notebook, and a highlighter. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. I love a good traditional Bible study. But it isn’t the only way to engage with God’s Word.

The goal isn’t simply to check Bible study off our to-do list. The goal is to connect with God.

And the more meaningful that connection becomes, the more we desire it.

Maybe you have 30 minutes. Maybe you have 15. Maybe all you have is five minutes and one song.

Start there.

I’m actually thinking about trying this with the new Kirk Franklin and GloRilla song. The original song they remade was definitely popular during my college party days! I’m curious to hear how they’ve transformed it and explore how the lyrics connect to Scripture.

That’s the beauty of studying God’s Word. There are so many ways to approach it, and sometimes the most meaningful moments begin when we’re not even expecting them.

So this week, I want to challenge you to try something different. Pick a gospel song you love. Listen to the lyrics. Write down what speaks to you. Then open your Bible and explore what God says about those words.

You might be surprised by what you discover.

Reflection Question: What is one creative way you could engage with God’s Word this week that would make Bible study feel less like an obligation and more like an opportunity to connect with Him?

Until next time,

Dominique

I missed last week. My first blog post missed in months.

At first, I was disappointed. Writing is a gift God has given me, and it’s one I want to continue nurturing and cultivating. I love writing, and I know I don’t get better at it if I’m not doing it.

But something I picked up at the Brave Space Conference was the importance of redefining what success means.

So I started thinking: Have I been unsuccessful because I missed a week?

If my goal was to publish a blog post every single week without fail, then traditionally, yes.

But what if my true goal was to consistently nurture my craft, develop my gift, and show up for myself?

Then missing one week doesn’t derail my success.

Success does not equal perfection.

That’s a lesson I know, but it’s also one I have to keep learning. Perfectionism has a way of sneaking back into our thinking, convincing us that one missed opportunity somehow cancels out all the progress we’ve made.

But consistency isn’t about never missing. It’s about continuing to show up, even after we do.

And maybe that’s what success looks like in this season. Not a perfect record, but a continued commitment to the things God has placed in my heart.

Because growth is a journey, and perfectionism will probably show up again. The difference is that I’m learning how to recognize it and challenge it instead of allowing it to define me.

One missed week doesn’t erase months of showing up. It doesn’t mean I’ve stopped growing.

Until next time,

Dominique

September has always been my favorite month. It’s my birthday month, fall is around the corner, and something about September has always felt like a reset.

Recently, I started seeing posts about September being a month of completion. Apparently, in numerology, the number nine is associated with completion, endings, and preparing for a new cycle. Now, I’m not looking to numerology to tell me what God is doing in my life, but the idea of completion caught my attention.

Especially because it reminded me of something I wrote on September 28, 2023.

At the time, I had come across 2 Corinthians 8:10–11:

“Here is my advice: It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago. Last year you were the first who wanted to give, and you were the first to begin doing it. Now you should finish what you started…” — 2 Corinthians 8:10–11 NLT

I remember thinking, Where has this verse been?

I needed it.

I wrote in 2023: “I’m a great starter but not a great finisher.”

That used to be me.

I get excited about an idea. Then the ideas multiply. I start thinking about all the possibilities, all the different angles, all the ways I could execute it and eventually the excitement becomes overwhelm.

At the time, one of those unfinished things was my book.

I had started writing it a year earlier, and then my phone died. Everything I had written was gone. I was devastated, but if I’m being truthful, I was mostly mad at myself. I hadn’t properly saved what I was creating.

Still, I wrote something else that day:

“I want to finish what I start.”

Three years later, I’m reading those words differently.

Because I did go back.

I started again. I kept writing. I changed things. I added things. I wrestled with the direction more times than I can count.

But eventually, I had a completed first draft in my hands.

And maybe that’s what I’ve been learning about finishing: finishing requires you to stop being captivated by what something could be long enough to complete what it is.

At some point, you have to stop adding.

At some point, you have to finish.

Now, 2 Corinthians 8 isn’t about writing books. Paul was talking to the Corinthians about completing a financial gift they had previously committed to giving. But I love the principle in his instruction.

They had the desire.

They had started.

Now their completion needed to match their willingness.

Starting isn’t usually my problem. Maybe it isn’t yours either.

Maybe there’s something you were excited about in January that you’ve barely touched since March. Maybe there’s something God put on your heart that became complicated once you realized how much work it would require. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that because you stopped, you failed.

Its ok.

Go back.

September doesn’t have to mean the year is almost over and you’re running out of time. There are still months left in this year.

That’s enough time to return to something.

Enough time to finish.

Zechariah 4:9 says, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it.”

I love that.

The same hands that started it can finish it.

So I’m asking myself a different question as I move through my favorite month:

What have I already laid the foundation for that it’s time to finish?

I’m not looking for something new to start.

I’ve got enough ideas.

This season, I want my completion to match my willingness.

Finish the work.

Until next time,

Dominique

Today is my actual birthday, and I am officially 41 years old!

My 40th year of life did not look the way I thought it would. When I was 39, I did all this preparing because I wanted my 40th year to be exactly what I imagined. But it didn’t quite work out that way. So many things happened that were completely outside of my control.

There were some great times, some incredible highs, and definitely some lows. I learned a lot of lessons. I dug deeper into my writing bag and honestly feel like I unlocked a new creative plane. I had some amazing opportunities at work. I finished the draft of my book.

And through all of it, I can confidently say that I am better than I was last year—even though sometimes it feels like I had to go through the fire to get here.

My word for 2026 was connection, and I’ve watched that word show up in so many different ways. But surprisingly, one of the biggest has been my connection with myself.

I’ve learned to feel my feelings instead of immediately trying to make them go away. I’ve worked on not being so hard on myself. I’ve started asking what’s underneath what I’m feeling and allowing myself to go beneath the surface.

Maybe 40 wasn’t the year everything came together the way I planned.

Maybe it was the year I came together.

As I step into 41, I’m praying that I can tie up some loose ends and go into 2027 with a clean slate and a head start. There are still a few months left in this year, and I believe a lot can happen in that time.

As always, I am grateful. Grateful for my husband, my children, my friends and family, my job, the opportunities I’ve been given, the lessons I’ve learned, and simply for life.

Here’s to 41. ❤️

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
—Psalm 46:1 NIV

I prayed one morning and asked God to help me. If I am honest, the help I wanted was an immediate solution. I wanted everything to be fixed. I wanted the heaviness to lift, the situation to change, and everything to be okay.

That was not exactly what happened.

Instead, God sent help in pieces. People were reached. My husband recognized what I was carrying. I was given little reminders and small things that helped me feel better. Writing helped me process what I was feeling.

None of those things completely resolved the situation, but I could see that God was answering me.

His help simply did not look the way I thought it would.

I think we do this often. We ask God for help, but we already have a picture in our minds of what His help should look like. We want an immediate solution, but He sends an open door. We want the pain removed, but He sends someone who notices us. We want everything restored at once, but He gives us enough strength, wisdom, or peace to make it through the next few hours.

Then we overlook the help because it did not arrive in the form we expected.

I originally thought God’s help would mean changing the situation. Instead, some of His help came through changing how I responded to it.

I wanted Him to remove the sadness. Instead, He helped me recognize it before I redirected it into anger. He gave me the awareness to understand that picking a fight with my husband or focusing on something negative at work would not address what was actually hurting. It would only create another problem.

That was help.

At first, I did not think praying or writing had worked because I did not feel better immediately. In the moment, I thought, I did the thing, and it didn’t work.

A few hours later, however, I realized that I did feel better. Everything was not resolved, and I could still feel some of the heaviness sitting on my chest, but I felt calmer and more hopeful.

The change was not instantaneous, but it was happening.

Sometimes we expect prayer to work like a switch. We pray, and we think the feeling should immediately disappear. When it doesn’t, we assume God has not answered or that what we did was ineffective.

But processing takes time. Healing takes time. Even peace can arrive gradually.

God was not necessarily saying, “I am going to fix everything for you right now.” He was showing me, “Here are some things that will help you carry this. I am with you while you work through it.”

I know God will eventually work everything out, but I also understand that I have to be an active participant in my healing and in the character development He wants to do within me. I cannot ask Him to heal me while refusing to acknowledge what hurts. I cannot ask Him to develop self-control in me and then ignore the opportunities He gives me to practice it.

Sometimes God’s answer is not immediately making us feel better. Sometimes His answer is helping us respond better.

He may give us the self-control not to project our pain onto someone else. He may send someone who recognizes that we are struggling. He may give us the words to write, the courage to be honest, or enough hope to take the next step.

The situation may not be resolved yet, but we are calmer, clearer, more hopeful, and better able to move forward.

What if that is God’s help?

What if the answer is already arriving in pieces, but we have been overlooking it because it does not resemble the complete solution we requested?

God’s help may not always remove the situation immediately. Sometimes it strengthens us, steadies us, and changes us while we walk through it.

That is still help and that is still answered prayer.

Until next time,

Dominique

I have said before that going through something is harder when you are pretending everything is okay. Not only are you dealing with what happened, but you are also using energy to convince everyone around you that you are fine. You are fighting two battles: the actual pain and the pressure to hide it.

But I recently realized there is another layer to this.

Sometimes we stop pretending for other people but continue pretending with ourselves.

We finally tell someone, “I’m not okay.” We admit that something hurts. We pray about it, talk about it, or write it down. But internally, we are still resisting what we feel.

I shouldn’t be this sad.

I know God, so why am I still struggling?

I prayed about it. Why don’t I feel better yet?

We acknowledge the feeling with our mouths while internally demanding that it go away.

That is still a fight.

Recently, I had to be honest with myself about what I was feeling. I realized that it is easier for me to be mad than it is to be sad. Anger feels active. It gives me something to do, something to criticize, or someone to blame. Sadness makes me sit still and acknowledge that something hurts.

My initial thoughts were to pick a fight with my husband or find something negative to focus on at work. Neither of those things was the real issue. They would have just given my sadness somewhere else to go.

But before I went down that rabbit hole, I stopped myself.

No. That is not what this is really about. You are sad, and you do not want to be sad.

That recognition was growth.

I did not create another problem to avoid the original pain. I did not dress my sadness up as anger and hand it to someone else. I allowed sadness to be sadness.

Accepting what you feel is not the same as surrendering to it. Saying, “I am sad right now,” is not the same as saying, “I will always be sad.” Acknowledging an emotion does not mean building a home there. It means you stop arguing with what is already true long enough to understand it, process it, and allow God to meet you in it.

There is a progression to honesty.

First, we stop pretending for other people and admit, “I am not okay.”

Then we stop pretending with ourselves and admit, “I am sad, and I cannot rush myself out of it.”

Finally, we allow ourselves to feel the emotion without letting it control our behavior.

“The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
—Philippians 4:7 NIV

We often think peace that surpasses understanding means we will immediately stop feeling sad, worried, or overwhelmed. But perhaps peace does not always mean the feeling disappears. Sometimes peace means we stop fighting ourselves while we feel it.

Peace may sound like:

This still hurts, but I do not have to make it hurt more by judging myself.

I am sad, but I do not have to turn my sadness into anger.

I am struggling, but that does not mean God has abandoned me.

I can feel this without becoming this.

Maybe peace begins before the sadness leaves.

Maybe it begins when we stop demanding that the feeling leave before we are willing to acknowledge it. We do not have to bully ourselves into feeling better or manufacture anger to feel stronger. We can tell ourselves the truth, choose not to project our pain onto someone else, and give healing the time it requires.

Sometimes healing begins when we stop pretending with other people. Other times it begins when we stop arguing with ourselves about what we feel.

Either way, we can remove one of the battles by telling the truth: This hurts. I do not like it. But I do not have to fight myself while God walks me through it.

Until next time,

Dominique